Save the Dates

It’s been a minute since I last posted! That’s mostly because things have slowed down, as you may have noticed, due to this little COVID-19 bug that’s been going around. I hope you’re all staying safe and sound. Daniel and I have had a few conversations on what we think the plan is come time for our wedding, but the truth is we just can’t make any decisions until closer to then. Things are changing so fast that it’s hard for us to predict what the world is going to look like in even just a few months. Even if Texas relaxes restrictions on gathering sizes, it still might not be safe enough to have all our loved ones put themselves at risk for travel. We will definitely keep you all updated as we make our decisions, though!

On a lighter note, we sent out our save the dates this afternoon! I really enjoyed this project, especially since we got to really make it our own, and it saved us a pretty penny, too! There are actually two parts to this one: designing the save the dates and making the envelopes. That’s right, we made the envelopes. Seems silly, I know, but I wasn’t really into spending $30 on envelopes after we’d saved at least that much by printing our own save the dates.

So first, designing these things. It’s actually not that hard! Some free software, a good quality photo, and a glass of wine (optional) are all you need. I used Inkscape, a free and open source vector graphics editor. It will do similar things to Adobe Photoshop or InDesign, and, for the budget-bride, it’s just the right price. The user interface for this software is…not ideal, but again it is free.

First, you’ll want to go to File > Document Properties and set the size of your save the date. We were going to print using the postcard size at Staples, so I went ahead and used those dimensions. Next, import your image (File > Import), and crop it to your desired size by clipping it. We used the original file from our engagement photographer to keep the super high resolution.

Easily add words using the text box feature. Luckily, unlike the Cricut Design Space software, you do not have to manually place letters. Similar to Microsoft Word, you can set the character and line spacing to your preferences.

Honestly, the back was more difficult because of the flowers. I found an image using these flowers as a free scalable vector graphic (svg) file just by a simple google search. You want to find a .svg as opposed to another image filetype to better maintain the quality of the image when you go to print. That way, you’ll limit the risk of getting something that looks really rough and pixelated. Again, I fiddled around with it, cropping, duplicating, rotating, and more to rearrange the original flower file into the repeated pattern with the middle section cut out. It took longer than I’d like to admit, but the back of the card needed color.

They came together really well, and with a coupon from Staples, we only spent $60 to print 250 of them at the postcard size. We did not need 250, but this was the smallest amount we could buy to get the number we actually needed (125). Compare this to using a premade template and just filling in our information for $175 at Vistaprint at the time we got them printed (December 2019) for 150. And we wouldn’t get to use our own fonts, either!

Okay, now for the envelopes, because you know every extra penny is getting pinched to put toward that sweet, sweet open bar.

I found a free template for envelopes posted by some very kind soul (see here). Most people would post it for sale on Etsy or Cricut, but lucky for me I found these. The trick to get custom sized envelopes is to calculate the scale factor to get the perforation area to fit your card size. The box marking the perforation area is where your card will actually fit into, so you’ll also want to leave a bit of extra room. That extra space will leave wiggle room for the card to slide in and for the paper to fold on itself. For example, if the width of the perforate rectangle in the template is 8" and your card is 4" wide, you’ll want to resize that box to be 4 1/8" wide. So \(4.125 / 8 = 0.52\). Then multiply the width of the entire cut + score object by \(0.52\) and resize to that value. Do the same with the length.

Next is addressing the envelopes. Recall from my last post that this is tedious to set up in Cricut Design Space: you have to manually place all of the cursive letters in the Cricut Design Space software to make it look like one fluid written stroke. Another difficulty I encountered was the overall placement of the design onto the envelope. Cricut leaves a 1/4" left margin on all projects to make sure it doesn’t go off the page. This is not so ideal for this envelope template that barely fits on 8.5 x 11" cardstock. I had to offset the cardstock on the mat by 1/4" to make sure it fit. I had to toss a few in the recycling because it was too far in either direction.

As much as I love the drawing feature of the Cricut Explore Air 2, I wasn’t about spending $4 per pen for the Cricut brand pen. Cricut smartly creates their own pens, and you basically have to be lucky to find a pen of the same thickness to fit into the machine if you want to go off brand. However, I found a pen Daniel’s parents had given us for Christmas a couple years ago. It’s got a great felt tip for a craft like this, and it was free (to us). Unfortunately, it was too skinny to fit into my Cricut. Since I didn’t want to be reliant on whatever pens Cricut decides to produce, I purchased a set of adapters that would allow me to use whatever pen/marker of my choosing in the Cricut! One of these fit the new pen perfectly, so when my Cricut pen from the original bundle ran out of ink, I easily switched to this one. Actually, I liked it better as it was a bit thinner and gave more of an actually handwritten look.

Finally, all that was left was to assemble! Fold along the perforated lines, and tape the flaps down. I had the best results when applying the tape to the flaps on the top and bottom rather than the left and right sides. My mom had gotten me the Scotch ATG 700 double-sided tape gun for Christmas this last year. Naturally, I was elated. This is one of my favorite new crafting tools. We’ve taped up all the save the dates, and we haven’t even gone through half of the first wheel of tape. The tape holds SO WELL; it is better than any other adhesive I’ve ever used. It goes on clean and smooth. The two caveats are price and it being a bit difficult to replace the tape wheel inside the dispenser.

I think that about sums it up. Happy crafting, and stay safe out there!

I Do Crew Proposal Cards

11/23/2019

You may have noticed we don’t have an equal number of groomsmen and bridesmaids on our main page of this website. We’ve opted to just call our wedding party an “I Do Crew.” This decision was made for a few different reasons, but, primarily, we didn’t want to have to fight over who got to stand on whose side just because of gender. Each member of this incredible crew is friend or (future) family to us both. At the end of the day, we know they are not rooting for just one of us, but for the both of us in our marriage.

Okay, I’m done being sappy - onto the crafts. I took this project on to (1) be cutesy and (2) to test a couple of crafting techniques that I was hoping to use on later paper crafts for our wedding.

What the heck is a proposal card? Just a little greeting card, sent in the mail or in person, to “propose” that a person be in your wedding party. Basically, one of those Hallmark industry made up things, but it’s pretty hard for me to turn down a DIY opportunity. We went through a few drafts to get the process down as well as the aesthetic/vibe we were going for. We ultimately decided to personalize each card with a handwritten message. Because we were leaving the inside blank, the project became a lot easier from a crafting perspective.

We chose to use some free fonts we found on dafont.com: Made The Artist Script and Neris Thin. These fonts are used throughout our website and will be used on forthcoming wedding stationary. Once downloaded and installed, these fonts are available in the Cricut Design Space software that is associated with Cricut machines, as well as all your other text editor software.

Designing the card itself is fairly simple. A rectangular shape creates the cut outline, the line across the middle is set to “score,” and the text, “Will you be in our” is set to draw. I typically find that the custom material setting on the Cricut works better than any of the presets. In the software, I then select the appropriate material (medium cardstock here), and the software then guides you through which tool is needed when (fine point pen, scoring stylus, or fine point blade) for you to switch out and continue. I found the light grip mat to work better than a standard grip; the standard was too sticky and would leave most of my cardstock still stuck to the mat after trying to remove it.

Working with the adhesive foil was only about 50 times harder. First off, when cutting a material into cursive text, you must manually place the letters to get the letters to connect as though written with a single pen stroke. The “weld” option in Cricut Design then tells the machine to treat all the words as a single object rather than independent letters (so you get “hello world” as opposed to “h e l l o w o r l d”).

Here I again used custom material and selected adhesive foil. Definitely use a light grip mat, as the foil is a much daintier medium. Unfortunately, the Cricut brand metallic foils are not very sticky, making them very difficult to transfer. The foil comes with a paper backing, similar to stickers that are sold on wax paper. The Cricut adhesive foil setting knows to cut very lightly, only cutting the foil and not all the way through the backing as well. You then have to “weed” the cut foil, i.e., remove all the background parts surrounding the letters (the holes in the letters “e” and “o”) without removing tiny pieces (punctuation, the dot on the letter “i”). I won’t lie, this part was the worst.

BUT it was definitely worth it. Finally, you have to carefully use transfer tape to relocate the letters from the wax paper to the cardstock. Again, the foil is not that sticky, causing the letters to move around on accident and no longer having that cursive writing effect.

I’m pretty happy with how they came out, even if they’re not all that uniform. Things I learned for when we do a similar process for the invitations: slow and steady keeps all your foil letters intact, print out excess periods for when you lose the dots for the letter “i,” and always always make extras!

Welcome & How to Host a Website Using flexdashboard and GitHub Pages

10/15/2019

Hello, friends and family!

I am dedicating this blog to all things DIY that Daniel and I work on throughout the wedding planning process. This will include, but may not be limited to, I Do Crew proposals, invitations, gifts, and even the very website you are reading from now. I don’t expect all or even any of you to find this remotely interesting, but maybe you will! At the very least, I wanted to document the neat things we come up with and describe how to do them in case other crafty couples wanted to learn from our successes and our mistakes.

If you didn’t already know, I really love crafting. The process of taking raw materials and creating something appreciable brings me great joy whether it’s baking, wood crafting, or scrapbooking. Until recently, I have always been a busy student without a lot of time available for crafting. However, I now work that wonderful 9-5 and, better yet, have an occassion to take on some really great crafting projects: our engagement!